Lost and found
by Gina281087
Summary: They've looked at love from both sides now, from give and take, and still somehow, its love's illusions they recall, they really don't know love at all... from 'Both sides now' Joni Mitchell                Danny OC, two different POV
1. Chapter 1

**Lost and found**

_Disclaimer: I only own Kyla and Colin._

**Chapter 1**

**Kyla.**

I was playing nervously with my ring, trying to calm myself down. I had never set foot in a prison before. Following the officer ahead of me, I looked all around me. Everything was dark here: the hallways, the greenish walls, people's faces...I turned my eyes towards the iron-barred windows through which some rays of sun were passing. I felt oppressed, in danger and I wondered how could inmates become better people in such a place. "It's here" the officer told me, bringing me out of my thoughts. I thanked him with a nod and sat down on the hard chair put at my disposal. I couldn't help fidgeting, sometimes sitting up straight, sometimes trying to adopt a more relaxed attitude. Since my childhood, I used to hide my feelings but now I had difficulty containing my nervousness. At last he appeared, in his grey baggy jumpsuit...

His eyes fell on me and I thought I saw a hint of resentment in his big blue eyes. But it was soon replaced by sadness and exhaustion. I also noticed that his face expression had become harder, colder. It had been a year and I didn't recognize him anymore. He sat down and stared at me as if he had also forgotten what I looked like. He picked up the phone on his left side and I did the same, as the atmosphere became tense, neither of us wanting to start talking. He was the one who broke the silence. He was right, we didn't have much time.

"How was your journey?"

I sighed. This sentence seemed so unreal, so out of place.

"Pretty bad, I don't like coach journeys. There was a fat woman sat next to me, who didn't stop chatting. I thanked God when she finally dozed off" I replied as I saw a faint smile playing over his lips.

"And I bet that you spent the rest of the journey listening to music and watching the landscape pass by, lost in your own little world. Let me guess: Jeff Buckley, Sting, Coldplay?"

"You know me so well..." I murmured, looking down.

This disturbing and irritating silence fell again. I had a question in my mind but I was too afraid to ask it, too afraid to hear the answer. As if he had read in my thoughts, he replied with a sweet smile as he used to do so many times before.

"I'm not mad at you..."

"I should've come earlier, I should..." I sighed, "I should never have left. I forsook you."

"I understand why you did that, I really do and I was 20 when you left New York, I was perfectly able to make it on my own..."

"Yeah, I can see that" I smirked.

He laughed gently, as if to tell me that the fact he was in jail didn't matter that much. I was angry with myself, feeling responsible for his situation. He was the one who broke the law but if I had stayed, it wouldn't have happened that way.

"Did you pay a visit to the parents?" he asked me hesitantly. The parents.

"Yes" was my only answer. I didn't want to broach this subject.

"How's Mum?"

"She thinks too much" I shrugged.

"And Dad?"

"He drinks too much"

He looked at me sadly. Nothing had changed since our childhood. Our father drank a lot and as for our mother she took all sorts of pills. A pill to sleep, a pill to lose weight, a pill to smile...a pill for everything. If she had found a pill to just live, our lives would have been a lot different. Ok, she wasn't happy but it didn't give her the right to have been so harsh on us. He looked down and clenched his jaw.

"They didn't come to see me..." he said.

I didn't reply, I wasn't much surprised.

"I disappointed them..." he added softly.

"You will get used to it, trust your screw-up of a sister" I laughed and so did he. The subject was closed. I glanced at the guard who was standing arms folded behind his back, his cold eyes sweeping around the room.

"How do you feel?" I asked him, staring straight at him.

"I'm fine" he looked away.

"Don't lie to me..."

If he knew me well, I knew him even better.

"I'm scared but if you show your weaknesses here, you might as well sign your death warrant," he answered as I felt a pang in my heart.

"You have trouble?"

He shook his head but I didn't believe him.

"Come on! You're skinny and as sweet as a brownie, you're an easy target. If you have trouble, tell me" I raised my voice, forcing him to tell me the truth. I had always protected him and I didn't want him to be hurt.

"I got a protector"

"What do you mean?"

"A guy protects me, he prevents the other inmates from hurting me. First time I took a shower here, there were two jerks who wanted to...you know, but this guy approached them and said that I was his. They left me in peace right away. I was scared to hell but he reassured me. He told me that as long as I stayed by his side, nothing would happen to me."

I listened to his story, my eyebrows frowned. I was skeptical.

"What does he want in exchange?"

"Nothing," he said but when he saw my I-wasn't-born-yesterday face, he hastened to add, "It's true. He said that I reminded him of his lil' brother. He's impressive but he's cool. He got a wife and two children. Besides you can see him, he's in the second visiting room on your right.

I moved back to see the man who was protecting my brother. Colin was right, he was quite impressive, prison life having left indelible marks on him. Only his stick-out ears gave a likeable side to him.

"He certainly has authority over the other inmates...And you trust this guy?"

"Yeah I do. He's clean Murphy, really"

I smiled. Murphy. I hadn't heard this nickname for a long time. It referred to my bad luck. However the latter had faded away since I had left New York.

"What's his name?"

"Rafael Alvarez but everyone calls him Rafi."

We kept talking about this and that during the rest of the visit. He wanted to know how my life in Detroit was and I summed up the last year spent in that city. Soon, too soon, a guard told us that it was time we left each other. Colin put his hand on the perspex glass and I covered it with mine. I had often seen people do it in the movies and now, I realized how important this simple gesture could be. He stood up and another guard took him back to his cell. I watched him go away, toughtful. My brother.

As I was heading towards the exit, I noticed that a man was leaving the visiting room of Rafael 'Rafi' Alvarez. He was the same age of me and had some features in common with my brother's protector. Probably his brother, I told myself. As soon as I was out of that damn prison, I took several breaths of air and stopped to feel the sun on my skin. I only managed to relax. The man I had seen a short while ago was there, busy with his cell phone. I approached him.

"Excuse me...huh...Do you know Rafael Alvarez?"

He looked at me and my heart started racing. He was absolutely handsome, especially in the lighting of this beautiful July day. My eyes lingered on his face, his eyes, his tanned skin, his lips...

"Yes, I'm his brother, why?" he frowned.

"I'm Kyla. Kyla Mayer"

"Danny Taylor" he said shaking my hand. That was the day I met Danny.

"My brother, Colin, is in jail and it looks like your brother is protecting him. Could you tell him, well, thank him for me, please?"

He raised an eyebrow, still gazing at me.

"Are you sure we're talking about the same man?"


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2**

**Danny.**

I knew it was gonna be a bad day. I hated cases concerning children and this one would leave its mark on me for ever. April, 10, an angel's smile and cheerful eyes...We found her in the late afternoon, dumped like a piece of trash in Central Park. She was half-naked, her body covered with bruises and various wounds. There were marks of strangulation on her neck, which had caused her death. Martin, Jack and I stood motionless, petrified by this horrible sight. Then Martin walked away and threw up. I kept staring at her, my heard seemed to have stopped beating. I wanted to cover her little body with my jacket in order to restore a bit of her innocence but it was impossible. We were waiting for the forensic team and I couldn't contaminate the crime scene. We needed all the evidences to find her rapist and murderer.

"Come Danny, there's nothing left we can do..." I heard Jack tell me. I nodded slightly and looked away from the little girl. I headed towards Martin and rested my hand on his shoulder as he turned his eyes to me. He was crying. We kept silent, what could we say after that?

We had to tell the parents now and it was Jack who did it. April's mother burst out into tears and as for the father, he took his wife in his arms with a horrified expression upon his face. It was days like this you couldn't stay alone but there was nobody home waiting for me...and before I realized it, I had ended up in that bar. Oddly enough, I didn't feel like drinking, well, not more than usual. However, I needed to see people, I needed life around me, feeling suddenly so empty. And there I saw her coming my way with naughty eyes. Her name was Brooke or Sharon, whatever...She was tall, blonde, heavily made-up and she soon started flirting with me. I played along with her, knowing that I didnt want to spend this night alone.

"I'd like to become an actress or a model but it's difficult to make oneself a place in New York..."

I was listening with half an ear.

"I've been told to try my luck in L.A, that I'd manage to make a name for myself over there, that I had the body for it..."

I didn't give a damn.

"Yeah, Los Angeles is good..." I replied without conviction. I had never set foot in that city. She would have better come back home and resume her studies. But instead of that, she was there with we, talking about her ambitions. She was a walking cliché, a cliché with whom I left the bar a quarter later. We had agreed to go to her place and she didn't wait for us to enter the apartment before kissing me eagerly. I was convinced that she was looking for the love of her life but she had drawn the short straw with me. However, tonight, using her didn't bother my conscience. I felt frozen inside and I needed a warm body to spend the night with. I deepened our kisses as my hands ventured underneath her black top. We headed for her bedroom and I made love to her, without passion, without love, without feeling like doing it. I just needed it. As she put her head on my chest, letting out a satisfied sigh, I felt a nausea of disgust coming over me. Was I gonna keep flitting from one girl to another, consol myself with nameless bodies? Oh I forget, this one had a name: Brooke...or Sharon, I still can't remember. I waited for her to doze off and then slipped away from her apartment as I started feeling remorse. Tomorrow, I would have forgotten her face and I hated myself because of that. I had to go home now, where loneliness and pain were waiting for me. I felt bad.

A few hours later, I woke up. Despite the nightmares that had plagued my sleep during the rest of the night, I felt better. I still had in my mind the image of April's bruised body but it was another day and the sun greeted me with a friendly smile.

A shower, some scrambled eggs, a hot black coffee. I was totally awake now and was staring blankly at the TV that was broadcasting the day's news. The murder of April was on every channel and I turned off the TV, I couldn't see it anymore. I then drove to work and arrived twenty minutes later. No new case, thank God! Everybody was already there and we looked each other. We all had deep circles under our eyes. Yesterday's case had effected each of us but we didn't talk about it. We should have done it though, it was obvious that it was eating us inside.

In the afternoon, I left the office and took the ferry to Rikers Island. Rafi had got into trouble again. _Go directly to jail, do not pass go, do not collect $200. _My brother had picked that card too many times. However, this time, I had thought that it would be different, that he wouldn't screw up again. He had a life he could be proud of. A job in a body shop, a devoted wife, a loving son and a baby girl who was about to be born. But his plans didn't work out and his old demons had come back. No, actually, I lied. I never thought he had changed, I never trusted him and when he disappeared six months after he came out of prison, I immediately started to doubt him. Unfortunately, I was right, he had been using again. I had found him in this dark garage and for the first time in my life, I had seen him cry. I couldn't abandon him...I still didn't trust him but he we shared the same blood and I wanted to rebuild our relationship. I had become the big brother and it was my turn to protect him now.

I was sat in front of him, trying to fill the lull in our conversation. He had a bad cut on his temple and I sighed.

"Have you been fighting?" I asked him but I already knew the answer.

"I didn't start it!"

"Yeah, right."

He eyes darkened as he got angry.

"You don't know what it is to be in prison, Danny, you don't know the rules here!"

"Yeah, unlike you, I made the right choice!" I raised my voice.

"Congratulations Danny, but we can't all be as perfect as you!" he snapped at me.

I shook my head. It was gonna be hard to become close again.

"I never said I was perfect, I'm far from being perfect, believe me" I replied as a shadow came across my face.

"What's going on Danny?" he asked, now worried.

"Nothing, I'm fine."

We weren't ready to talk to each other, so we exchanged trivialities during the rest of the visit. As I was about to leave, he asked me not to say anything to Sylvia about the fight and the cut. I stood up and he looked me straight in the eye.

"I like when you come to see me" he whispered.

It was certainly hard for him to say such things, we both didn't use to express our feelings. I smiled gently and waved him goodbye. I'd come back next week. Then I watched him go away in his grey jumpsuit. My brother.

I headed quickly towards the exit, I didn't like this place. I took my cell phone and dialed Sylvia's number to tell her that I had seen Rafi and that I'd probably drop by on her apartment in the evening. Nobody answered, I hung up.

Then I saw a woman walking towards me. She had dark hair, an average height and piercing blue-green eyes. I was puzzled when she asked me if I knew Rafael Alvarez. She then introduced herself. Kyla...She was beautiful, really beautiful, simply beautiful.

"My brother, Colin, is in jail and it looks like your brother is protecting him. Could you tell him, well, thank him for me, please?"

I looked at her, my eyebrows frowned.

"Are you sure we're talking about the same man?"

I doubted that he could be able to do such a thing. Obviously, I really didn't know him.


End file.
